Subj : Re: Polymorphism sucks [Was: Paradigms which way to go?]
To   : comp.programming,comp.object
From : Chris Sonnack
Date : Fri Aug 26 2005 02:21 pm

Dmitry A. Kazakov writes:

>>> Sort of.  Fuzzy logic is 'set' logic where objects have 'partial'
>>> membership in sets.  So, Captain Kirk is an 85% member of the set of
>>> all good guys, and a 15% member of the set of all bad guys.
>> 
>> And, insofaras "85%" and "15%" and "good guys" and "bad guys" are
>> all (in this context) well-defined (not fuzzy), we're back where
>> we started.
> 
> Not at all!
> 
> 1. A side note. Robert's example is not quite precise. In general case X
> 0.85 in "good guys" does imply X 0.15 in "bad guys". To have this one must
> presume that "bad guys" = not "good guys", which is, well, depends... (:-))

Agreed.  One can have an "unknowns" group (or several).

> 2. "good guys" is of course fuzzy. Technically either Captain Kirk or
> "good guys" or both should be fuzzy to get 0.85 instead of 1 or 0. Well,
> assuming Captain Kirk being a real man... (:-))

Right.  But at some point the knife comes down and the system decides that
this fuzzy guy, Jim, has 85% membership in this fuzzy group "good guys".

THAT is not fuzzy.

> 3. But let's forget it and say "good guys" is crisp. That wouldn't change
> anything because Captain Kirk is still 0.85 in it. What does it *mean* to
> be 0.85 good?

Simple.  It means you're good most, but not all, of the time.  (True for
most of us, I imagine.)

> This meaning is the essence. It is uncertainty you cannot deal with in
> a crisp framework. You can do it only symbolically by postulating existence
> of uncertainty (either as randomness (0.85 = probability of), or as
> fuzziness (0.85 = possibility of), or as other set measure.) But you cannot
> look into that measure. You have to carry it with all the time. And all
> the answers will be in the terms of that measure. So in the end after all
> manipulations you still have: "it is 0.85 right." And? Is right or wrong?
> See? It is insoluble.

But, like probability functions in Quantum Mechanics, as some point, to be
useful, you have to "collapse" the function into a decision.

I can no longer quote from memory accurately, but to paraphrase Jim T. Kirk
himself, "TODAY we *decide* to be good."  (Tomorrow I might phaser you. :)

And computers--that is to say binary--can easily carry our 0.85 symbols
around until we need to do a calculation that determines whether Kirk
pushes the phaser button or the nice guy button.

So,... I still not convinced that Shannon does not apply.


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